1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to computerized control and observation of objects that may be subject to theft and misplacement. In particular, it relates to wireless method and system in this regard that is dedicated to objects which represent a certain value or importance for its owner and shall thus be observed.
2. Description of Related Art
In today's social and business environments many valuable things are displaced or stolen. Among them computer equipment, medical equipment, technical equipment, pieces of art, luxury cars, etc. Those things are found to be of large size and sometimes of small size as well, e.g., in case of PDA's, notebooks, or any other portable article, of maybe increased personal value only. Generally, it is useful to be able to pinpoint the current location of these devices, i.e., an observation of them is desired and useful.
Those objects or devices are further referred to herein as ‘observed devices’.
A theft/misplacement detection method for tracking the current location of an ‘observed device’, in which for the case the observed device is stolen or displaced, a preprogrammed sequence of actions is triggered by wireless communication control, is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,748,084.
This prior art document addresses a method and system for locating, communicating and managing small electronic devices, especially laptop-computers, but also other microprocessor-containing devices or instruments. A tamper-proof beacon unit includes a transponder or transceiver within the laptop-computer. Under normal circumstances the beacon implements a standard communication function for the general communications needs of the device such as e-mail, voice, data or other communication tasks. When theft of the computer occurs, however, the beacon can be activated with a security control program in order to secure crucial data in the computer's storage, to enable or disable functions of the computer, and to either transmit or destroy or hide sensitive data. The transmission signal of the, beacon is preferably also trackable to locate and recover the stolen computer. The security control program is intended to be invoked by the owner of the stolen device as soon as he is aware that the device is stolen. In this situation, the owner calls a phone number associated with the stolen device. The stolen device is ready to receive the call even if it is switched off. The owner's call acts as an activation signal in order to run the security control program. Thus, said program can execute whatever necessary in order to satisfy the individual needs of the owner, when they are reflected in the security control program.
According to this prior art approach a preferably two-way-RF-link, such as a cellular phone link is used for communication with the stolen device. A security mechanism can thus be remote-controlled by the owner of the device in order to prevent the thief from using the device. This is of certain value, for example for those devices of which the business value is either the data stored within the device or the technical functionality of the device itself. A high-end notebook computer is an example for the latter case. A luxury car is an example of a device of high economic value, but without data having an increased business value.
This prior art approach has some specific disadvantages:
First, the efficiency is limited because the activation of the security control program is may be far too late, as it is activated by a user phone call which comes in at the earliest instance shortly after the owner has detected that the device has been stolen. Thus, it can be too late for undertaking any adequate measures, as for example, to close a building in which the device was stolen in order to control the people leaving the building.
A second disadvantage is that this prior art approach can hardly be applied in order to observe and thus protect devices which do not contain a microprocessor and a transceiver unit as these technical units are used as technical components within the protection concept. In case of two-way-RF-link, i.e. cellular phone-link, such protection logic is quite expensive and complicated to hide within the device. This is particularly true for non-technical objects, like precious paintings, for example only.
Third, if the device is once stolen there is no possibility provided for helping the device to be found again except to prior art cellular locating technology on triangulation base. This possibility is of limited value only because big efforts must be undertaken in order to search for the stolen article.